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These cute little hand and foot warmers are easy to make and a good way to use up fabric scraps. If you don’t have any fabric scraps, you can pick up the last bits from a roll at a fabric store for very little money.

Not only can these warm up your hands and feet, but if you add essential oils, you can turn them into personal diffusers and customize the scent according to your needs.

Try gifting the hand and foot warmers along with a small sample bottle of oil for refreshing the scent.

Instructions:

Sew a 1 1/2″ x 2″ (3 3/4 × 5 cm) piece of fleece to the center of one of the fleece squares to make a little pocket. You’ll want to attach it to the square on three sides and leave one side open (you’ll be inserting the small aroma pad in this pocket to customize your scent).

Now take another fleece square that is the same size as the one you sewed the pocket to, and put them together with the pocket side on the outside. Sew these squares together on 3 sides (leave one side open). Note: when you start or end sewing, reverse directions after 10 stitches or so to reinforce the area and prevent it from coming unstitched.

Fill the fleece warmer with rice or whole flax seeds (until 2/3 full—leave enough space to sew the remaining side without rice getting in the way). Add 3–5 drops essential oil to the rice or whole flax seeds (optional, but this helps cover the musty scent of the rice).

Once the rice or whole flax seeds are in, sew up the remaining side.

To use, simply pop your warmers in the microwave for 30 seconds or until pretty warm (but not hot!). Add a few drops of essential oil to the aroma pad, and place it in the little fleece pocket. Use to keep your hands or feet warm by holding them or placing them in mittens or socks. They should stay warm for about 15–20 minutes.

Extra Ideas:

Use pinking shears to cut your squares to give them a decorative finish.

If you don’t want to sew a pocket for the aroma pad, you can always add your 3–5 drops of essential oil to the rice, then add additional scent directly to the fleece (just avoid citrus essential oils if putting oil directly on the fleece).

It’s time for holiday gift-giving, and this gift guide includes several ideas for you—one of which we are featuring below!These gift ideas are not the only reason that you should get your own copy of this guide. Inside you will find a large world map that shows where many popular essential oils come from. This map can be easily displayed in your essential oil class and used to teach your prospective customers about where essential oils are obtained. The gift guide unfolds to reveal this large 11″ × 17″ (28 × 43 cm) chart that can be framed or passed around. Get your free copy here—and feel free to get extras to pass out to your essential oil–loving friends!As mentioned above, we are highlighting one of the recipes—the Refreshing Rosemary Mint Shampoo—that is found in the gift guide. This shampoo uses peppermint and rosemary essential oils because they are both known to help stimulate hair growth and work well for all hair types. If you prefer a different scent or have different needs, check out Modern Essentials for more essential oil suggestions, and feel free to switch out the oils in this recipe. This shampoo makes a great gift for any of your holistically inclined friends!

These Ribbon Christmas Tree Diffusers are simple to make and incredibly adorable! Hang one up in your car as a diffuser, on your Christmas tree as an ornament, or anywhere else you want to decorate and add a little holiday scent. Gifting one of these is also a great way to introduce a friend to essential oils.

Use This Craft in a Make & Take Class

These Ribbon Christmas Tree Diffusers also make a fun make-and-take project at an essential oil class! Just start with a short lesson about essential oils, and then mingle with your guests as they make their own Ribbon Christmas Tree Diffusers.

Essential oils (such as a Christmas blend or a few single essential oils that your guests can make their own blend with)

Distilled water

Depending on the number of people attending your class, you can set this up in the following stations:

Materials Station. This station should include various types of ribbon, rulers or another way to measure out the ribbon, scissors, and a variety of beads (you’ll need small beads to help tie off the string and larger beads to use as the tree trunk). Every ribbon tree requires 2 small beads and 10 larger beads. Make sure to include a list of materials needed.

Ribbon Tree Assembly Station(s). Have markers, rulers, elastic string, scissors, needles, and clear nail polish at this station with instructions for making the Ribbon Trees.

Essential Oil Station. This is where your guests can make their own essential oil spray. You’ll need the 15 ml spray bottles, vegetable glycerin, essential oils, and distilled water with instructions for making the sprays. If you have a holiday-scented essential oil blend, it would be easy to just offer that. If not, you can offer a few single essential oils and recipes for your guests to make their own holiday-scented blend. Here are a couple holiday blends you can try: Holiday Diffuser Blends, Citrus Spice Diffuser Blend, Autumn-Scented Essential Oil Blends.

Instructions:

Cut a piece of ribbon 19″ (48 cm) long. Use a marker to place a small dot in the center of the ribbon 2″ (5 cm) from one end of the ribbon to mark your starting point. From this point, make additional marks along the ribbon, spacing them apart at these increments: 2 3/4″ (7 cm), 2 1/2″ (6.5 cm), 2 1/4″ (6 cm), 2″ (5.5 cm), 1 3/4″ (5 cm), 1 1/2″ (4.5 cm), 1 1/4″ (4 cm), 1″ (3.5 cm), etc. (the spaces between the marks should gradually get smaller by a 1/4″ [.5 cm] as you move down the ribbon).

Select your beads. You’ll need 2 small beads to secure the ends and 10 larger beads for the “trunk” of the tree.

Cut a piece of thread/string about 30″ (76 cm) long (you’ll need about 10–12″ [25.5–30.5 cm] for the tree and extra for the loop at the top). Thread your needle, and tie the ends of the string together.

Put your needle through the ribbon at the starting point (the mark 2″ [5 cm] from the end), then through a large bead, then through a small bead; continue threading around the small bead, back through the large bead, and back through the ribbon at the same mark. This secures the bottom of the tree. Now put the needle through another large bead, through the ribbon at the next mark, through another large bead, through the ribbon at the 3rd mark, and repeat until all the large beads are gone. After the last bead is threaded, put the needle through the small bead, then around the small bead, back through the large bead, and back through the last mark on the ribbon. Tie a knot, then go back up through the ribbon, large bead, and small bead. Tie another knot a 2–4″ (5–10 cm) above the tree (or however big you want your hanging loop to be), and cut the thread.

Finish by cutting the ribbon ends to where you think it looks good, and apply clear nail polish or glue to the ends to help prevent fraying.

Make an essential oil spray by placing 1/4 tsp. (1.5 ml) vegetable glycerin in the 15 ml bottle. Add 4–6 drops of essential oil. Fill the rest with distilled water, and screw on the spray top. Shake to combine.

To use, spray your essential oil spray on the ribbon tree, and hang wherever you desire. Refresh the scent by spraying the tree again with more of the essential oil spray.

Snowglobes are a fun and magical part of the holiday season. Try making some of your own this year using our glass salve jars. These snowglobes make great decorations, neighbor gifts, and stocking stuffers.

Are you looking for fun ideas for Christmas stocking stuffers? We’ve come up with lists of great essential oil–related stocking stuffer gifts for every member of the family! These lists include fun gifts that are also great tools for incorporating essential oils into your healthy lifestyle.

Have you tried doing an advent calendar leading up to Christmas? This is often a fun tradition, especially with kids, to help keep the focus on family and serving rather than on getting and receiving. Even if you don’t have children, it can be a great way to keep up the holiday cheer and count down to the holiday. So, regardless of your circumstances, you can make this advent calendar a fun tradition to start this year!

Using salve jars as an advent calendar allows you to hide activity ideas, recipes, diffuser blends in sample vials, chocOILates, symbols of the activity, or other small items or treats inside that can be enjoyed each day leading up to Christmas. The salve jars are attached to a magnet board or refrigerator with the use of strong magnets glued to the bottoms of the jars.

This cute advent calendar we are sharing today uses stickers with numbers on them that you apply to the tops of the salve jars, and then the salve jars are arranged in the pattern of a Christmas tree. This calendar also features labels listing various holiday activities, essential oil crafts and recipes, service ideas, and more that can be applied to the inside of the salve jars. You can also include the provided recipe cards that correlate with the activity ideas.

Are you looking for an easy gift to give to neighbors and friends this Christmas? Well, this homemade vanilla extract may just be the perfect one! It’s simple to make and very delicious! However, it does take a few months to properly steep, so you might want to start now.

To make this vanilla extract, you only need a few things—vanilla beans, alcohol (such as vodka, rum, or bourbon), glass bottles, and labels. Vanilla beans can be expensive when bought locally; so to make this gift as inexpensive as possible, consider buying the beans in bulk from an online source like Amazon.com. Our 4 oz. Glass Bottles work really well for this project, and our 4 oz. Glass Bottles with Dropper Caps make it really easy to get the exact amount of vanilla you need when cooking.

The best thing about homemade vanilla is that if you leave the beans in the bottle, it just keeps getting better the longer you let it sit. When gifting this, make sure to leave 1–2 vanilla beans in every 4 oz. bottle so it not only looks authentic, but also so your friends can enjoy a richer vanilla flavor over time.